Desert Dunes Golf Course, an 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed course in Desert Hot Springs, has closed its doors for good, according to the club’s website.
Opened in 1989 as the first Trent Jones Jr. course in the Coachella Valley, Desert Dunes was built just off Palm Drive north of Interstate 10. That location was part of the problem for the course, as strong winds in the exposed desert could make the course unplayable at times.
“We are sad to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances the Desert Dunes Golf Course has permanently closed,” the website says. “Management thought this would be a good year. The course was in great shape and management even ordered a new golf cart fleet. Unfortunately, a combination of the weather, the well on sixteen collapsing, the watering system needing to be rebuilt, and continuing losses caused the decision to close.”
Grant Fuhr, a National Hockey League Hall of Famer who served as director of golf at Desert Dunes in the 2010s, said he didn’t know much about the decision to close the course. The closure leaves Desert Hot Springs with just one 18-hole regulation golf course, Mission Lakes Country Club.
“All I know is they locked up the gates, I don’t know when exactly, and the owner went back up to Canada,” Fuhr said.
Fuhr said it wasn’t just the wind that caused problems at Desert Dunes.
“It was a hard golf course, but it was a fair golf course,” said Fuhr, now a television commentator for the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League. “Weather, yeah, it gets windy, but it seems like people fly to Scotland for the same experience. I think the biggest knock on it was it was never in great shape. It was in good shape but never great, and when you have 130 other golf courses, you have to be great.”
More: 2024 in golf: Surprise winners, new courses all part of desert golf scene
Desert Dunes also suffered from numerous ownership changes, once being owned by a Japanese company that renamed the course The Fields for a short period of time.
The course’s website said the course appreciated the support of desert golfers.
“We did our best to try to make it work, however, when we ran out of money trying to maintain the course to the standards we have all enjoyed, our outside funding ceased and given all the issues, we had no choice than to close the course,” the website statement said.
Through the years, the course hosted several events on what was called the Canadian Tour, now PGA Tour Americas, and hosted high school events and even one U.S. Open local qualifying event.
Since the course opened, there were several proposals that developers would build homes around the golf course. Fuhr said the course itself needed to improve before homes were built, not the other way around. It was the upkeep of the course that was the issue, with Fuhr, a noted celebrity golfer, saying Desert Dunes was one of the best Robert Trent Jones Jr. layouts he has seen.
The layout of the course took holes into the native desert, with several holes protected from the wind by large groves of tamarisk trees. But the driving range played directly into the prevailing winds in the exposed desert as did the ninth and 18th holes.
The website also said the “the Wildlife, Dunes, and Land are now under the care of Oswit Land Trust. Our hope is that the land becomes a permanent Nature Preserve in the near future.”
Oswit Land Trust is a Palm Springs-based 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission statement says it is “to save and preserve land, wildlife habitat and ecosystems located in Southern California from impending destruction.”
Oswit recently purchased Mesquite Country Club in Palm Springs with plans to turn that 18-hole course into a nature preserve as well. That announcement, in 2022, was the last time a course in the Coachella Valley closed.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Dunes golf course in Desert Hot Springs shuts down ‘permanently’
